HardBoiled
by jooce
Summary: When the mysterious Lee comes into her office with a case she can't refuse, world-weary detective Mai is sent into the seedy heart of Ba Sing Se, a world of deception and crime, in order to find the elusive Avatar. 1920s AU
1. the tightlipped client

This was initially supposed to be a short parody, but it evolved (or devolved) into a pseudo-hard-boiled detective story. Mai always seemed like the perfect choice for this. The universe is suppose to be New York 1920s style, but with a touch of Avatar culture and such. I'll probably omit most of the lingo since that'll probably get confusing for you and me too.

I honestly can't tell if my descriptions are too over-the-top and cheesy, so I'd appreciate any critique or comments.

Hope you enjoy this!

* * *

Even with the blinds closed, I could tell it was raining; the droplets were pounding on the walls like a guilty man's heartbeat. In a city like this, where murder occurs every night and illegal firewater can be found in the hands of a child sitting by the side of the street, the rain's beat matched perfectly. When the sun comes out, it only seems to have a sadistic smile as it lights up dark, dank places of filth, places that most people push out of their minds and cover up in order to stay sane. It's only the rain that washes away blood into gutters, only the rain that shields you from the violence that blurs outside of your vision.

But with the rain came the cold. Feeling a shiver descend down my spine, I picked up my cup of tea and took a long drink from it. Before spitting it straight back out. Ty Lee's tea could clean a drain clog, but it couldn't warm my insides.

Now what was a girl with a decent (as in legal, definitely not in terms of dough) job as a gumshoe doing cooped up in her workplace on a Friday night? The men in this city were either too boring or too deep in digging their own graves. And with parents that only consider you a china doll to be put on display when the dough-lined politicians come around in their shiny primped ostrich-horse carriages, who wouldn't want to leave home and stay curled up in a cozy office? Albeit a dingy one with a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling like a dead fish. The dim light provided a tranquil hideaway where I could do what I wanted in peace. Not that there was much to do. A dart board hanging next the to the door was so riddled with holes that it was hard for whatever I had on me—safety pins, needles, knives, the occasional fork—to stick to the center when I threw it there. And I threw hard. But this was still my own secluded nest in the middle of a mad city, and I wouldn't give it up for all the fire flakes in Yi Ming's Corner Store.

Of course, that didn't change the fact that boredom attached to this place like an elbow-leech. With nothing to do, I picked up the little plaque in the front of my desk and a rag from deep within one of the drawers. It was the only thing worth cleaning in this dusty joint, and if a person doesn't have a name, what does she have?

_Mai, Private Detective_

After rubbing the indentations, I set it back down neatly, approving the sparkle that survived in this spirit-forsaken town of Ba Sing Se.

But my inner peace was quickly hacked away by my secretary, who barged into my office unannounced with her clacking high heels, as she always did.

"Mai, you have a client!" Ty Lee shouted brightly, despite being in close proximity. I didn't _need_ a secretary; there wasn't enough work here to fill a body bag. But there was no way I could turn her sprightly self down. Agni knows she needed the money, or she would have become like every other young girl who just moved into this town with no one to watch out for her: a prostitute or the victim of a serial killer. Especially since she was a girl that always left a couple of buttons undone. Although her cheery attitude and constant talk about auras and horoscopes could become head-splitting, it was a nice change from the usual grey scenery.

"Ty Lee, how many times have I told you knock before entering?" I drawled. Of course, I said this everytime she came in and every time she answered—

"Sorry Mai, I just can't help myself! But I'll definitely knock next time, I swear. I was just so excited because it looks you got an actual client!"

I was tempted to snort. Most people who had problems tended to handle it themselves. Or turn up in a ditch the next week. So anyone who came to a building like this in a seedy neighborhood was either looking to chat up Ty Lee or was trouble. It being a Friday night, I guessed the former. But I just sighed. "Send the person in." Rather than die of boredom I thought I might as well die from the stupidity of a boy who was head-over-heels.

"You got it!" She headed back out, practically cartwheeling, her braid bouncing on her crisp pink suit jacket, a stark contrast to white linoleum walls surrounding her.

I straightened out my desk, which was empty except for a couple of crumpled, half-finished crosswords and a doodle of Tom-Tom. The door swung open and I got up to address this supposed client.

I quickly covered my flash of surprise.

Instead of the naïve face of someone who was trying to pick up my secretary, I was met by a tall young man with dark hair and heavy-set golden eyes. The kind of man that women would run to in flocks. His mouth was curled into a tight frown, matching his somber choice of clothing: a black suit with a dark red button-up, the collar slightly opened. But was most striking about him was his scar, a crinkly mass of deep hues wrapped over his left eye like a parasite sucking the life out of his pale skin. This didn't detract from his arrogant atmosphere, however, his keeping a pointy chin slightly tilted up. He looked like money, and smelled like it too.

"Mai, private detective," I introduced, holding out a hand. He walked over and grasped mine firmly, shaking it.

"I know," he replied curtly before seating himself opposite of me in a hard metal chair. He briefly flicked his eyes up the naked light bulb above him.

"Would 'I know' happen to have a name?"

The stranger stiffened, but his face remained unchanged. "Just call me Lee."

We both remained silent for a while, both of us trying to figure each other out. A man with an alias was always a sign of illegal meanderings, and a man with an expression as serious as his was always a sign of danger. Not the kind of danger you get when you sip a bit too much cactus juice, but the danger you get when you walk into a dark alley with a bag of coins that jingle a bit too loudly. But my curiosity was piqued. "What's your case, Lee?"

"There's something I need you to find."

"Something, or someone?"

He paused for a moment. Taking a deep breath, he replied, "I need you to find the Avatar."

It took a couple of seconds for his request to finally sink in. "You want me to find the only eyewitness who was about to testify against Ozai, who skipped town when they blew up his apartment and tried to have him killed, who managed to elude the most notorious gang in history, who whenever they wanted someone dead, always gave him a bullet in the head as a souvenir to the underworld?"

"Yes, that Avatar."

I paused before asking my next question, wondering if the answer could get me killed. Although Phoenix had been keeping quiet for the past couple of weeks after the attempt to have them brought to trial, they had a very long history of getting their enemies "accidentally" run over. "And why do you need me to find him?"

We sat in silence again after I stated my query, neither of us backing down in our tug-of-war game of information. Although he had a good poker face, I met more than enough haughty bastards in my life to take care of a haughty client. My eyes bored into his gold-hued ones—

"I'm so sorry!" Our silent battle was interrupted by Ty Lee, who popped her head in like a badger frog. "I can't believe I forgot to offer you something to drink when you came in, Mr…"

"Lee," we said in unison, neither of us taking our eyes off of each other at the sound of my secretary's voice bubbling in the room.

"I'm fine," he answered with a slight wave of his hand, before finally averting his gaze, instead taking a moment to eye the drab surroundings.

After I gave her a pointed look, Ty Lee smiled apologetically and silently shut the door.

His head snapped back at me. "Look. I came to you because I heard good things about your professionalism, skill, and tight mouth from people—"

"Which people?"

"—some people, anyways what I'm trying to say is that there are certain things about me that are better kept secret, for the sake of your safety as well as mine." He finished with a slight pant, his eyebrows knitted ever further downward.

The stereotypical bad boy, huh. Droves, not flocks.

"Well for the sake of my safety, I'd rather know what sort of trouble I may be getting into."

A pause. "Fine." He shook his head at my determination. "Let's just say he can help me with something personal. Restore my honor."

I mulled this over, hands clasped together tightly on the desk. His scar was a real nasty piece of work; it looked like it was done in by a very serious Phoenix gang member. And he ground out honor like meat into a grinder. What sort of stupid stunt could he have pulled to get into this sort of trouble?

"Last I heard, the Avatar was long gone from here."

Lee fished into his pocket and pulled out a crinkled photograph; it had obviously been held and looked over many times. "The Avatar's back." He slid it across the desk towards me, and I leaned over for a closer look.

The photo was slightly blurry at the edges; someone was in a hurry when he or she took the photo. Although it was black and white, it was clearly a picture of the entrance to the temple on Fong Street; its intricately carved arches were famous in the city, and it was also a popular site for eggings. From behind the doorway in the picture, a white pointy ear and part of a small furry head could be seen poking out. Rather than voicing my own conclusions, I waited for Lee to speak again.

"That," he said, jabbing a finger at the mysterious figure, "is the Avatar's pet flying-lemur. When the Avatar went missing, this went missing with him." He leaned back into his chair and folded his arms tightly.

"How do you know this isn't some other flying-lemur?"

He scoffed. "All the other lemurs were either sold to traveling circuses or shot for sport a long time ago."

The date listed on the bottom-right corner showed that the photograph was taken less than a week ago. What Lee said made sense, but there were still questions to be answered.

"The lemur could have returned here without the Avatar."

"The Avatar is _always_ with his flying-lemur."

I was tempted to ask more, his odd confidence in those facts nagging at me. But a good detective knew when asking too much meant getting your body dumped into the river.

"How do I know Phoenix isn't hunting him down right now and that I won't get killed in the crossfire?"

"Trust me. Nobody knows about this except you and me."

Here was a man with a face that was battered long and hard by turmoil, with the hands of a man who got to his age by climbing over obstacles covered in barbed wire, with a gaze that eyed every corner, every shadow, every garbage can with suspicion. Now he was taking a leap of faith and putting his trust in me, just because of "some people". Trust is a dangerous game when you're surrounded by saber-tooth moose-lions and hyenas, just waiting to pounce, but at that moment I couldn't help but reciprocate and believe him.

"And payment?"

Lee reached into a pocket that was deeper within his coat, and from there extracted a deceptively small bag, placing it next to the photograph. I pulled at the strings, revealing a pile of shiny gold coins that glittered like a mass of dragon teeth in a mouth that could swallow you whole. Picking up a coin with one hand, I slipped a small knife out of my sleeve into the other and stabbed the piece of gold. It was hard enough to stop a bullet, and the coin rejoined its brothers and sisters in the sack.

"I'll give you the other half when you find the Avatar. I believe this will be sufficient," he said, but he looked a bit surprised at my reaction, or rather lack thereof. Bags like these were interchanged daily between my parents and other politicians, whether it be in an office over drinks or in a kitchen over, well whatever could be on or done on kitchen tables. And these coins smelled just as dirty as the coins fingered by fat corrupted city officials who lingered around my old home. Nonetheless, cases didn't just walk into my office all the time like Ty Lee's dates, and Lee's payment was more than enough to cover rent until I was old and sagging.

"Alright, I'll take on your case. But don't expect any positive results; the Avatar has eluded both the authorities and Ozai's goons for quite a while." Lee nodded in understanding, but I could see a spark of misplaced hope in his eyes. "Where can I find you?"

"Just ask for me here." Lee took a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to me, from which I read:

_The Jasmine Dragon_

_48 Komodo Street  
No pets. _

Engraved underneath the address was an off-color lotus design, wrapped around by a thin dragon.

I recognized the bar from when I went to eat at Penang's with Ty Lee occasionally but never actually went inside the shoddy looking building that was tucked away into an obscure corner. The only reason I ever noticed it was that a hulking boozehound was thrown out of its doors once, shouting about how he couldn't have been beaten at arm wrestling by a girl. It was an odd match for Lee.

We both got up and shook hands again, sealing our business transaction. I watched as he walked out of the room; from behind his posture looked less arrogant and more like young duck-turtle baring its beak to bluff its way out. He grabbed his trench coat and hat from the stand next to Ty Lee's desk, nodded at her, and headed out. When I heard the door shut, the jovial girl came in again. "Not the most talkative guy is he." She looked at me brightly. "He's like a male version you!"

"Except my hair doesn't look like a gopher-mouse made a home in it." And he had the rare fire of hope burning inside of his soul, something that burnt out in me a long time ago. "Anyways, it looks like I a got case. One that pays well for once." When Ty Lee peeked inside the sack, she let out a low whistle.

"That's enough to buy a circus. You sure about taking this case, Mai? His aura wasn't exactly the cleanest around."

"Then what do you think he should do, bathe in a bucket of detergent?"

She laughed but returned to her serious tone and pointed a finger at me. "Seriously Mai, I want you to be extra careful with this case. You're the one that gave me a new life, a life apart from that circus manager." She shuddered, her face betraying a moment of revulsion. "There's been a lot of crazy rumors flying around lately. And I don't know what I'd do without you around here making the 10th floor even more gloomy than it already is." Ty Lee smiled and I couldn't help but return tinier, ephemeral version of it. "What do you have to do for all those coins anyway?"

Before responding I flicked out a key and unlocked the bottommost drawer, sliding the bag unceremoniously into the cobwebbed abyss. It landed with a heavy thump and I swiftly locked it away.

"I'm going to find the Avatar."

* * *

_Tune in for next week's exciting edition of HardBoiled in the pulp magazine section of your local newspaper stand!_

_x_

Reviews are super loved. I want to hear your thoughts. Detective!Mai approves.


	2. the bourbon and tea

Man this is a super long chapter. Probably the last time it'll be this long, for better or worse. No action yet. Just waddling along…  
I know a temple in the city is a stretch, but I've seen that in Taiwan. Bear with me here. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the overturned tables.

Hope you enjoy!

* * *

The rain had already stopped by the time I left the office building, leaving dark residue over the roads and sidewalks. I already stepped into a semi-deep puddle, splashing a deluge of muddy water all over my beige trench coat, which trickled down like a tramp's tears.

It was still early in the morning; I made an effort to get out of my apartment (conveniently one floor below the office) before any screeching dodos began their quotidian calls and the masses got out of their beds to fill up the space between the cement blocks. The sun could only peer through the wool-like grey clouds, unable to get through vinyl blinds and wake up lovers from their secretive slumber. The only people that were up were workaholics who needed to set up shop earlier than their neighbors, gaining a minute advantage in daily sales. I passed by several cafes unbothered as their owners put up canvas overhangs, preparing for the onslaught of light later in the afternoon.

In a way I was appreciative of their financial pressure; I stopped at a newspaper stand whose newsie looked like he could sell his wares all night. Passing him a nickel, I grabbed a damp Saturday edition of Ba Sing Gazette and continued onward to the temple.

"Arson at the old Xiu building, attempted arson at the library, a murdered kid and his mutilated dog, a couple of kidnappings, armed robbery at the Bei Fong jewelers, a salmonella-tainted radish recall, a body floated up down by the docks…"

They were only the usual stories; scanning the headlines revealed no news about the gang. It really looked like Ozai and his hoodlums were laying low for a while. Though with bootleggers there was always a tipsy quiet before a full-blown intoxicated riot.

I neatly folded up the newspaper and stashed it inside my coat when I saw the street sign labeled Fong. Passing by a couple more small shops, I reached the entrance to the temple, which was nestled awkwardly between a barbershop and a candy store. Its stone walls showed signs of a repaint, probably to cover up whatever graffiti kids came up with. A faint breeze passed through the round, half-open doorway and through my hair, leaving me with a prickling sensation.

"Take that!"

I cocked my head to the left and spotted a little boy who was jabbing at a small cricket with a burning cigarette. His hair was matted together with dirt, sticking up at the sides, and his face wasn't too clean either. Rather than ignore his trivial actions that normally wouldn't spare a second glance from me, I pulled out some spare change from my coat.

"Hey, kid, do you want to earn some extra cash?"

* * *

"Welcome," said a monk in orange robes with a bow. After returning the greeting, I placed some coins into the donation box and took an incense stick.

Although the area was fairly small, state funding made sure the structures inside were elaborate enough to look good with the high-class who assumed being religious would improve their public image. The place was like a high-end call-girl who found her high-heeled way into the slums; the courtyard was perfectly clean, not a speck of gum or litter in site. The green lawn look like it arrived from another planet, taking up home in the most uninhabitable city imaginable. But the white marble was the leechi nut on top of the fruit pie. If anyone had a chainsaw and could carve through several feet of stone, the walls would have been jacked already. My family came to this sacred island atop an ocean of black often when I was a child, instructing me to place an incense stick into the sand in reverence of the spirits. But I lost my faith already; spirits never bothered to get involved with human affairs. The incense stick lay tilted at an odd angle in the grey sand.

"Mai! It's good to see you again." The voice of an old man ruffled the flame and I turned to see Gyatso walking towards me with open arms.

"Good morning to you too," I said, holding out a hand to shake. But he just wrapped me in a tight hug and held me by the shoulder with brittle but warm hands. He smelled like sandalwood.

"I have not seen you here in years. Come, let us sit down and have some tea." Gyatso escorted me to one of the gazebos in the construct, flanked by white lotus flowers. A tray was already set on the circular table, complete with fruit pies. "I guess it would be too far-fetched to say that you came here to find faith again," he chuckled. "Fruit pie?"

I accepted and took a bite of the grape pastry out of courtesy more than anything. Although I looked at spirits with disdain, their messengers were sincere and hospitable, rare traits in Ba Sing Se. But it wasn't my style to overstay a welcome. "Sorry, I'm here on business."

The monk frowned in disappointment, his mustache drooping down like orchid petals. But he smiled again, pouring us both some tea. "Well that is to be expected. I'm still thankful for you finding my staff."

"It was no trouble." It really wasn't; a juvenile swiped it from where it was propped up against the table at the entrance, and a few harsh words and pointed knives reproduced the staff again as quickly as it was taken. I took a sip of tea in order to stall the conversation, but in the end a blunt approach was probably the best. Without taking my eyes off of the monk, I stated, "I've heard from reliable sources that the Avatar's been through here recently."

Gyatso's expression did not change, but that was what made him suspicious. "Really? I have not heard of that rumor. Nor have I seen it," he finished, laughing lightheartedly.

But I pressed on. "The Avatar used to frequent here often, and I remember him even being your pupil at one point before he got into a jam with the Phoenix boys."

His eyes closed in pain, remembering the manhunt for the kid he considered his son. "Yes, that is true. But he got out of town safely, and I hope he will not return here or else he will get himself killed."

There was no way I would get any more information out of him. The only thing stronger than a monk's connection to life is his willpower. "Thank you for clearing that up. The tea was delicious."

"I'm glad you think so. This shipment of tea leaves came in yesterday." We both got up and left the shade of the gazebo in exchange for the weak glare of the sun. There were more sounds coming from the street now. "Where did you get this idea from, if you do not mind telling?"

"A little dragon hawk told me," I answered, bowing.

He chuckled. "Dragon hawks are not little—"

Gyatso was interrupted by a loud shout. "Haha, take this you pasties!" The boy I paid off from earlier had climbed up a tree that extended into the courtyard and began to throw rotten eggs at the buildings. The shells hit the tiled roofs with a splintering crack, and the yolks slithered down like snail sloths.

We turned to each other, and I nodded in understanding. "I'll see myself out." Gyatso smiled gratefully before joining the other monks who were now trying to nab the brat. But he was too fast and quickly hopped onto the surrounding wall, wobbling a bit before making a show of running on it.

Seizing this opportunity, I glided towards the back of the compound where the living quarters were located. A couple of monks were exiting and I jumped behind a wall, waiting until the swish of their robes disappeared before taking another look. The pathway was empty; I crept through the deep-red wood doors and slid into an empty room as another monk came out of the bathroom.

The building was sparsely furnished; it wouldn't take me long to search the rooms. After going through several beds and drawers and finding nothing, I headed towards the last place I didn't search: the guest wing. There were only two rooms, each just as plain as the ones from before. They were mainly used by people who wished to partake in midnight rituals, and they looked like they hadn't been inhabited in a long time. The slippers next to the beds were dusty. The window was unwashed. But on closer inspection of the second room, I noticed something on the bed. White fur lay on the sheets. They almost camouflaged with the bone-colored linen. Some sort of dry brown pieces were scattered around the fur. I picked one piece up and sniffed it. They were leechi nut casings. The kind that encased fruit that flying-lemurs liked.

"I think you should leave now."

I flipped around quickly, my hair slapping at my body in surprise. No point in trying to look innocent; my face remained blank.

Gyatso sighed at my failure to comply. "I should have realized sooner what you were up to with that little boy."

"Better for me then."

"You do not know what you are getting yourself into."

"I have a case."

"You are getting involved in something very dangerous."

"I can handle myself."

He looked at me with sorrowful eyes, the same way he gazed at all other children who had grown up. "I do not know why the spirits chose for you to go down this path. But I do thank them for helping you grow into a strong young woman."

We remained silent. Our exchange confirmed Lee's belief that the Avatar did indeed rest here, if only for a night.

"You should clean those nuts up. It'll attract bugs." I swiftly made for the door and turned to edge past the monk, who made no pretense of stopping me.

"Take care of yourself, Mai."

I nodded in response, my job here finished.

* * *

"Get your radishes here, fresh radishes!" The merchant stood at the edge of the market, where the stands merged with the back-alleyways of a darker purpose. His attire wasn't too different from the other people who were selling their wares, but he wore an odd turban-like hat the color of puce. He had a permanent slouch with a chin that jutted forward like an appendage that was pasted on as an afterthought. His cheeks and eyelids were sagging, looking odd against his pale shiny eyes that flitted to and fro like a serpent's tongue. His arms were bent towards his body, giving him the appearance of a mouse clutching at its piece of cheese possessively.

"Jin Yi."

He stiffened at my appearance but pretended to ignore me. "Radishes! Radi-!" I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away from the light, which somehow made him blink even faster.

"Jin Yi. You know there's a salmonella outbreak, right?"

"What outbreak, what the hell's salmone—"

I gave him a swift whack in the head while staring down at his spotty skin.

"Okay yes, I know there's a damn bacteria disease thing goin' 'round, but what do ya' want me to frickin' do 'bout it? Nobody reads the damn news no more." He avoided my gaze like it was a Tommy machine gun. There were men and women all over town like this, weak-minded but nosy with ears as big as elephant rhinos. They could all be broken easily, but Jin Yi was the only nut worth cracking.

"I read the news. Now tell me about Phoenix."

"What the hell do ya mean? I went straight a long time 'go. I'm completely clean now—"

Another slap.

"Okay, okay! Stop with the damn hand! So I occasionally sell their shipments once in a while, that's not the worse I could be doing, but Agni, their firewater is real shi—"

"I don't want to know about your dealings, I want to know about Phoenix's."

"Spirits, honestly, I don't know what the hell they're up to, I've just heard that they've got this big plan cooking for some time now."

"What plan?"

"I swear to Agni, I don't know, I don't know! I only hear bits and pieces, and half of those are whack-job stories and other half are from half-dead drunkards."

I sighed. Jin Yi was the only decent informant around who hadn't been sent to the nuthouse or the cemetary, but he still knew absolutely nothing.

"How about the Avatar?"

His eyes bulged out like a drowning koi's.

"A-Ava wha-at?" he spewed out.

"You heard me." My fist gripped his grimy collar even tighter.

"H-he's a 17-year old boy, who got a little bit too nosy and w-was chased out by Ozai, what's there to know?"

I rolled my eyes. "Tell me something that I don't know."

"Well how the hell am I suppose to know what you don't know?"

I was tired of him running around in circles. With a gaze as cool as a dead man's touch, I outlined, "I want to know where the Avatar is. I know you know his location, and you're going to give me it, or…" There was a garbage can nearby, and with my free hand, I walked towards it and took the bag out, all the while dragging the small cabbage slug with me. After heaving it onto an unoccupied portion of the cart, I flicked out a freshly sharpened knife. If his eyes swelled any larger, they would have popped out like grapes.

"No, not my radishes!" He darted out of my grasp and came in between my knife and his cart. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you everything, just not my radishes!"

Satisfied with his reaction, I slipped the knife back to where it came from and folded my arms expectantly. Whether or not he would get to go home tonight and dream about his silly vegetables depended on the words that passed out of his mouth next.

"I didn't see this personally, but I've heard about this bald clout, well not really bald, he had a hat on apparently—"

"Then how do you know he's the Avatar?"

"—I was getting to that, geez people are so impatient these days…" The knife came back out and I began to twirl it around my fingers. "Sorry! Really, I was just jokin', anyways apparently there was some small animal with him, not sure what but it was something hairy, and he was spotted walking down Shuei Road." He paused to lick his chapped lips. "You know, where that kid's girl lives."

I hid the knife away again, and Jin Yi sighed in relief. "Thanks, here's something for your trouble." I grabbed some coins from my pocket and tossed them into his eager hands. His small fingers wrapped around them tightly and the coins disappeared to somewhere safe. "And make sure you keep your mouth shut." I placed a honey-colored gold coin on to his cart and swung the garbage bag off. It landed on the asphalt with a defeated thump.

"Pleasure doing business with ya. But next time will cost ya more." As soon as he gained control of his wares again, he wheeled the tainted products a bit farther away from me, as if a few feet of air could protect him. "Radishes, get your radishes here!"

I could still here him shouting as I walked briskly down the alley. His type was so predictable. It makes you wonder if the spirits purposely made everyone boring so they wouldn't have to do anything about the world. Or if people just chose to be boring in order to survive in the world without catching looks from people with guns shoved into their pants. I picked up my pace, hands in my pocket, planning to return to the office before the sun got any stronger.

* * *

"How do I look?" Ty Lee bounded up to where I was splayed on the couch, throwing a dart into the air. She was positively glowing, her cheeks dabbed with pink blush and her body fit into a low-cut dress, the straps barely holding it together.

I closed my eyes in an attempt to block out her smolder. "Like a hooker."

She tried her best to frown, though the energy bubbling inside of her quickly forced her mouth back up. "You didn't even look!" But that complaint was quickly brushed away. "You're going to visit Lee at the _Jasmine Dragon _on, uh, Komodo Street later, right?"

"His contact, at least."

"Well make sure you at least you have a drink there. It is a bar, you know. So I reorganized your ledger and got you a new day planner. Oh yah, and Mr. Ming called to remind you that uh," she paused for a moment to remember the right words, "'Get off your damned lazy ass and pay my rent already before I hafta come in through your window with a shotgun.' Yah I'm pretty sure that was it."

I groaned quietly. "Just let that idiot do whatever he wants. I'll pay him when I finish this case."

"Haha alright then. But remember, its not my head sitting next to the window, its yours." She flashed me a smile. "See you, Mai!"

"Have fun on your date," I replied before Ty Lee headed out of the door to go to dinner with whichever man she bumped into today.

The dart had lost its charm and I flung it back to the cabinet behind Ty Lee's desk, where it knocked into the wood and fell disgracefully onto a paperweight. Outside of the building, I could hear the squawks of ostrich horses grow louder and more numerous, and the honking of horns just served to distress them even more. If there was anytime to check out Lee's mysterious contact, now was the time.

The trench coat and fedora hung patiently on the hat stand. After grabbing them I exited the office as well, making sure to lock up on the way out.

x

Ba Sing Se at night is a completely different city than its counterpart in the day. It's like a cave-hopper that shies away under the sun, only to jump out of its hole in the ground when darkness peels away the pretense of light. There weren't just vagrants sleeping on the sidewalks under the moon; now hundreds of people were bustling through the streets to whatever destination they wanted to go to: a whorehouse, a bar, off a building if they really wanted to. The police had no jurisdiction in the city at night, and speakeasies flourished. They weren't even subtle anymore.

I pulled my hat a bit lower and kept my head in, looking up under the brim to scan the roads. I passed by a couple of drunken couples with their wayward giggles and hands, and a suspicious politician or two who didn't want to be recognized in this part of town. Club signs buzzed half-heartedly and a brawl could be spotted a couple of stores down. They were both just flinging flower-punches at each other though, nothing worth watching.

I finally found my way onto Komodo Street, the sign partially decorated in blue spray paint. This was easily one of the rowdier parts of down town. You could hear a tipsy melody being played on the tsunghi horn, the notes resounding out like the burps of a baby. Glass could be heard shattering on the pavement, and its contents, illegal or not, were being mourned. But all of that was unimportant and I began to search for the weathered wooden signboard of the _Jasmine Dragon_. As I scanned the buildings, a begrimed establishment with a shirshu tethered out front caught my attention. Seconds afterwards, a man was thrown out of its doors, his arm clutched in pain. That was it.

The secluded outward appearance disguised the raucous behavior of the bar's interior. While all of the tables were in tact, a couple had been flipped over, namely the ones around a tall, lean woman. She was a bizarre sight: men's shirt, though several sizes too small, tight leather pants, and long black hair that wasn't updoed in any sort of fashion. "Come back when you're a man!" she shouted to the weakling who was just kicked out. The guys standing around her either roared with glee or yelled in frustration when they lost their bets.

The place was dimly lit, but the light bulbs cast a lively green haze over the room. It smelled like bad breath and smoke, and it probably was. At the counter the grey-haired bartender was listening patiently to his customer.

"…thank you so much Mushi! That was so inspirational. You just turned my whole life around!" He said no to another shot and left the illegal institution beaming. I took his seat.

"You wouldn't happen to have some tea would you?"

The old men stopped cleaning a glass for a moment in surprise, but he smiled widely. "Of course, anything for the lady."

"Ginseng, then."

He chuckled as he fished around in the cabinets underneath the countertop for his tools. "Not many people come to a bar for tea."

"Not many people name their bars something like _Jasmine Dragon_."

"Makes it easier to talk about when you have a day job." He winked, and after some rummaging, fished out a teapot and a hot plate. We both turned around when the woman from before slammed another guy's arm into the wooden table so hard that split wood could be heard.

"Oh, that's June. Our bouncer. Doesn't do much of that, but she's not exactly sore on the eyes." He chuckled and began to heat some water.

"So what's an old man like you doing as a bartender?"

"Hey, just because I'm old doesn't mean I can't mix a good cocktail," he replied indignantly. "I could ask you why a young woman such as yourself has such a dead-fish look on your face. Maybe I should add a little hooch into your tea." I pursed my lips together. "Just joking, just joking."

"I'm looking for Lee."

The man called Mushi looked up in surprise. For a second I thought that this was the wrong place, and Lee pulled one over me, but a stupid grin erupted on the bartender's face. "Just a second." He moved towards the door behind the counter and shouted, "Lee! There's a beautiful lady who's looking for you!" He winked at me.

"What, Uncle?" I could hear that familiar voice float in through the door. The owner of it stepped out a moment afterwards. "Is this another one of your jokes—" He stopped at the sight of me and his uncle nudged him with an arm, which he swatted away. Lee's eyes lit up so fast I was surprised they didn't burst into flames. His hair wasn't combed neatly anymore, but a mass of tangles falling over his face. He wasn't wearing a crisp suit this time around but rather a vest and a white bartender shirt dotted with some stains, the sleeves rolled up like a forgotten carpet. His bowtie was slightly askew. Quickly recollecting himself, he nodded at me to follow him around the counter and through the door and quickly muttered something harshly to his elder, who just smiled at me.

We arrived at the small back room, which looked like it was mostly used for crashing after a night that was a bit too long. A faded brown couch was on one side and a rickety table with a radio on top was placed opposite of it. A Small fish tank sat idly in the corner, containing a black koi and a white koi that seemed to be dancing together.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing towards the couch as he pulled up a chair to sit across from me. I sunk into the cushion like rat in wet cement. "I didn't expect you to find him so soon." Although his voice was even, I could tell his muscles were tight with anticipation.

"I didn't." My blunt reply broke over him like a cold egg.

"Oh." His face twisted into a scowl that I was tempted to sever off. But it quickly passed and he assumed a more vulnerable slouch, his hands folded together on his forehead. "Sorry, I should have known you wouldn't have found him so fast."

"I've confirmed that he is here in Ba Sing Se, and that he did stay at the temple, but he's already fled from there." He nodded, waiting for the next part of what I found out. But instead I asked, "Why is the Avatar back in Ba Sing Se?"

Lee pulled his hands away from his face and looked at me. "I don't see how that's relevant."

"If it has anything to do with Phoenix, Ba Sing Se could be in the middle of a shitstorm right now, and _that _is relevant to me," I replied, recalling Jin Yi.

"Well even if it is, I don't know anything about that. I just spotted the lemur at the temple, that's all."

His face looked sincere, even the crinkling of the scar tissue around his eye. "Alright. Then tell me again why you want to find this kid."

Now I could see his face harden. He said his next words slowly. "I thought I already told you why."

"Personal matters and honor don't cut it in this private investigation now. Tell me why or I'll drop your case into my trash can."

I expected a, "Scram!" or at least some form of go screw yourself, but instead I just heard a sigh. Lee's face looked a hundred years too old for him and his eyelids seemed to droop like the wings of a crane before it landed on the water. "My mother…was killed by Ozai years ago."

"I'm sorry for your loss," came out automatically. Although I don't want to admit, there were many times I woke up panting and covered in cold sweat. I couldn't help but dream about nightmares, situations where my parents leave some nameless lounge only to be shot by a desperate mugger. I dreamt of how gang members would roll around in their cars and pump lead into my old home. I dreamt of how Tom-Tom would be left wailing as glass shattered around him. But this was the first time I met someone who explicitly told me he lost someone because of Phoenix, and there was nothing I could really say.

He took out a lighter, looking for something to occupy himself with. Flick, flick. "The Avatar…can bring peace to my family."

I sat still. "Was it the gang that gave you that scar?"

For a second I thought he wasn't going to answer me, the way he was staring at me with weary eyes. But he let out a harsh, "Yes."

The flame wavered for a moment before disappearing underneath the metal cap. Then he popped it open again and stared into the tiny fire, leaving silence to sink into the room like a corpse in the ocean.

I changed the subject. "So why not," I gestured towards his clothing, "all this, when you came in to see me?"

He looked slightly sheepish. "I've never really had to persuade anyone about anything serious. I thought looking like a butter and egg man would make the case more appealing."

"So you rented a suit."

He looked aghast. "No! That was…mine." He made one last flick before returning the lighter into his apron. "We used to be fairly well-off." Lee shrugged at me and I could tell he was trying to avoid the topic.

"Well you didn't need the suit, that sack of coins was more than enough for me to take on your case."

"You're a private investigator?" We both looked up to see Mushi standing at the doorway, holding a tray with my tea, his mouth agape. "You spent your savings on a gumshoe?" Although he wasn't even looking at me, I didn't mind; a bartender who offered that much cash to a P.I. could be pretty doped up.

"You don't understand Uncle, I need this!" Lee answered, sparks flying out of his eyes. A zealous man with a goal he needed to accomplish for his sanity's sake. He wasn't a monk, a Jin Yi, a politician, or some punk speeding through the traffic lights in order to get high. Lee was an enigma, he was unique. And I had a fleeting thought that his uniqueness would get me killed.

Mushi sighed; it was obvious that they had had this conversation before. He just set the tray down and sat on the other side of the couch. While pouring some tea, he asked, "But why her? No offense of course." He handed me the cup, which I graciously took.

"None taken."

Lee looked back and forth between us. "Do you remember Jee?"

An image of a middle-aged man with greying hair and ridiculous sideburns floated up. I nodded. "He was a friend of mine and used to frequent here a lot. One night he came in here telling me that he was leaving town after divorcing. Apparently he thought his wife was cheating on him, but a detective found out for him that she actually had multiple personality disorder and her other persona was a guy named Jack who went around selling diluted nose-candy to bums. He spoke highly of you."

I remembered the case. It wasn't fun being threatened to have metal slugs shoved into your body by a woman called Jack who was hopped up high in the clouds.

"Well if Jee approves, then I approve," Mushi added.

"So this is where you guys were having your group therapy sessions," came a strong voice. June walked in slowly, her hips swaying to the beat the jukebox outside was churning out. Lee glared at her.

"She your boyfriend?" That sent him coughing.

June let out a loud bark of a laugh. "Lee? Please, I'd date my shirshu before even looking at him." She gave me a onceover. "And who are you, kid?"

Being in my 20s didn't mean I was a kid. "Mai, private investigator." I held out my hand and she shook it with a strong grip before falling back on a chair next to Lee. Tea seemed like a good choice of action now and I flicked out a knife to stir my cup with.

Mushi and Lee just looked at me with surprised eyes, but the bouncer asked, "Whoa that's some high quality stuff you got there," eyeing the fine cut of the blade.

"Custom-made at Piandao's." She had a good eye.

"Huh, I thought he just dealt with guns. Good to know that he has some skills besides passing around beanshooters."

"If you supply him with the material, he can get pretty much get any design forged." I unfolded the knot at the front of my trench coat and pulled the right flap, revealing a stash of stilettos, shurikens, and a blade the size of a steak knife. They were all placed in neat ordered rows, like seasonings on a spice rack.

The two men in the room were definitely looking at me funny now, but June smiled in approval. "They look like high-quality instruments. Though I prefer something," she pulled an object off of her belt, "a little more flexible." With a light flick of her wrist, the end of her whip snapped right above the teacup I was holding, chasing away the water vapor. "Bet I could take you out in a fight," she challenged, one side of her smile quirking upwards.

"Okay, I think you girls have talked enough about your weapons," Lee said, stepping in.

June shot him a dark look and was about to snap her whip at him, but she was distracted by shouts emanating from the bar. When this was followed by a couple of painful yells and the sounds of overturned chairs, she cracked her knuckles. "Well, duty calls. Nice to meet you Mai." June got up and walked towards the door in her dark boots.

Lee visibly relaxed when she left the room. "June's something isn't she," Mushi noted, grinning at me. I just took a sip of my ginseng tea as his nephew rolled his eyes.

"Anyways, you just really want me to find the Avatar. I got it."

"Yah, and I'd really appreciate it if you made this case your first priority."

I didn't tell him that I had no other cases at the moment, but I nodded.

"Gramps, get in here, people want their damn booze!" the shirshu rider yelled from the other room.

Mushi slowly lifted himself off of the couch. "I hope the tea was to your liking."

"It was very good."

He smiled and headed out of the room as well. "I'll send in some firewater for you two. You both look like you could use some loosening up."

Mushi left us alone in the room. Lee fiddled his fingers while I just looked out through my black fringe, sipping some tea. It was amusing, watching him trying to think of a way to entertain company that he obviously rarely had. In the end, I got tired of doing nothing and asked, "So where's your father?"

He looked like a cow hippo caught in headlights. It probably wasn't the most tactful question but his reaction kept my attention. "He's…working. Abroad. He left after my mom died." After his sentence was finished, Mushi came in again, this time with a bottle of bourbon and a pair of glasses filled with ice. Lee regained composure.

"You kids help yourself."

"Thanks, Uncle," he replied dryly before Mushi rushed back out to return to his job. He poured some into both of our glasses and quickly took a gulp of his. "How about your family?"

"Haven't seen them in several years."

"Oh, I'm sorry to here that," he replied, mistaking my situation.

"It was my choice to break off contact." Since Lee seemed to be consuming his alcohol rather quickly, it would be courteous if I at least replaced the tea cup in my hand with the glass. The ice cubes inside clinked as I picked it up, the gold liquid swishing over them like corn-colored waves.

"Why? Didn't you love them?" he asked, as if there was no other connection one could have with a parent. He took another swig.

I have never been much of a drinker. When I couldn't sleep, and I would sneak downstairs and watch my parents entertain their guests, getting old liquor from the locked cabinet and pouring it for their company, who usually sucked it up like it was oxygen. Not my parents though, they didn't drink that much either. But the others acted like complete buffoons. And, growing up, hearing stories about drunken arguments and ostrich horse mishaps and back stabbings in the alley wasn't exactly uncommon. I don't see why anyone would purposely get drunk in order to act like a fool. I heard Ty Lee's voice rising in my head. _Mai, you can't act like such a stiff all the time, even if you do have a good reason to. Get out! Loosen up! Drinking's always fun if you have company. _Though even if I did go out, everything the city could possible offer was absolutely dull. Get drunk, go to a club, fall unconscious, wake up with a hangover, and do it all over again. That's why I chose to be a private investigator. Then there was a miniscule chance that something actually _interesting_ would show up.

Lee was looking at me like if he stared at me hard enough, his romantic idea of parent-child bonding would cross over to my head in the form of radio waves.

I suppose something had.

With a swift motion I tilted my head back and let a stream of bourbon trickle down my throat, lighting my passageway on fire. "I did love them. But after spending an entire childhood caged by their rules, I needed my space." My fingers tingled. "I send birthday cards to my brother every year though."

He nodded in understanding, taking another sip. "My sister and I," he thought about this for a while, "aren't exactly on the best terms."

I had a feeling he wasn't referring to June. "She with your father?"

By now both of our glasses were almost empty, and Lee took the care of refilling them. "This is good liquor, I'm surprised Uncle brought it out." He gulped some down and continued, "Yah, she is. She's the genius in our family, and always Father's favorite…"

"At least you had a parent that paid attention to you, rather than have their servants attend to everything. Honestly, its Tom-Tom and Ty Lee that's keeping me from jumping off of the city walls. There's nothing in this place really worth living for."

"If I was going to jump, I'd pick a classier location." I scrutinized him as best as I could with heavy eyelids and he gave me an odd pout. "Hey, that means that I believe you could do it."

"It doesn't matter where you jump, so long as you jump," I said disapprovingly.

"Just because I'm living in this," he swung his arms around unevenly, "_thing_, doesn't mean I can't pick a fancy restaurant as my final location. My Uncle may be satisfied with dingy bars, but I'm going to go to the top." Lee pointed a wobbly finger at the ceiling. "And I'm definitely bringing him with me," he said in a slurred, but warm tone. "I think that came out wrong…"

In between our conversations, more of the bourbon had disappeared, and I could tell Lee was swaying. But so was I, so was I, and I could see my vision swimming across my pupils like baby unagis chasing after some meek elephant-koi…

We were talking about how boring the world was and how boring people were, except Ty Lee of course, she kept me grounded oddly enough, and how annoying Nyla the shirshu was, always flicking its tongue at him, and how he always had to do the shopping, and how expensive alcohol was from smaller bootlegging groups, and how he messed up and messed up bad and how he was going to make his father proud…

And my eyelids closed.

* * *

_Tune in for the next installment, where Katara and Sokka make their first appearance! Check your local newsstands for next week's edition of the pulp magazine Man on Fire!_

x

I should start counting how many times Mai uses a dead body in a simile.

Comments, questions, critiques, all are loved. Just press the button.


	3. the altruists

School has been killing me lately, but I'm glad I got this done. Hella fun to write this chapter. :) It annoys me that I can never pick out all the mistakes on the first reread though.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the tarnished 35.

Hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

"Ugh," I groaned. Or tried to. My throat was so hoarse that it must have come out like the squawk of a dying arctic hen. But whoever was with me—_with me where?_—didn't seem to find it a problem.

I've woken up in mysterious places before—an unlit warehouse when I was still a child, a platypus bear cage after a case gone wrong—and I knew enough to stay still and just observe, which wasn't hard because my head throbbed like the hand of a greenhorn who knocked off his first victim.

Not that opening my eyes was any better. I had half a thought to shoot my brains out when my retinas were pierced by the merciless sunlight flooding through the windows.

Windows.

That ruled out ditch, dump, or river bottom.

Suddenly I felt my body shift upwards, followed by a quick drop and an ungraceful bump into the side of the chair in front of me. Blinking out the sting, I realized that I was in a car. While the interior color would remind you of a hearse, the driver was not solemn at all, humming a makeshift tune. He turned around.

"Oh good, you're awake Detective Mai! My nephew didn't have his wits entirely together when he told me how to get to your building, and my sense of direction has worsened with age. I was afraid we'd end up somewhere in the middle of Omashu before you got up."

My nerves loosened for a moment before I remember the contents of last night: tea, Jun, bourbon, Uncle, empty glasses, Lee, and then falling unconscious. But reminding myself seemed to feed fire to the monstrous hangover that moved into my head. Each bump in the road sent my brain careening around in my skull. I could feel several knives pressing hard against my stomach.

"So I know I have to get onto Kuei Lane, but then it splits off somewhere…"

"Left-most," I finally got out. I closed my eyes and tried to salvage whatever brain matter was left unscorched.

When the car coasted to a stop in front of the building, I said my thank you and insisted that I would get to my apartment myself, but he more ardently insisted that I should lean on him as we walked into the lobby, and up the elevator, until the light flashed and it made a ding and I got out and gave another terse thank you and he disappeared down the shoot and I looked for my keys and unlocked the door and fell over onto the couch and fell asleep without even removing my coat.

* * *

The honking of cars on the road outside of the building found their way into my apartment, and I woke up feeling only slightly better than how I was in the car. I checked the clock.

_3:27 PM_

I hissed and tried to get up from the couch, my head and legs still unsteady from whatever remnants of the hangover still clung to me like a greedy broad. Quickly undressing, I moved into the bathroom to take a wash.

After that long, albeit tipsy talk with Lee the night before, I was respurred to continue the case. Left knob, right knob. I didn't do it out of pity; he was impossible to pity. That would be like feeling sorry for a wounded komodo rhino. Soap, scrub. But I admired him and his strength: not an optimist, but a realist, a realist with goals. Towel, blouse, skirt. He was going somewhere, and with a sack of gold locked in the bottom drawer, I was going to help him.

I quickly tied my hair into two tails. After adjusting my jacket and making sure all the knives were in their secure places, I exited out of the apartment.

x

"…and then I said to Jack, if he brought another bearded cat into the house, he'd be doing the dance under a noose."

Turning onto Shuei Road, I passed by a couple of wives gossiping in front of a flower shop. The neighborhood was a bit worse than mine: trash littered the street and the buildings surrounding it looked weary as they stared down at its inhabitants. Shady people leaned against a wall smoking and conversing with each other, and a group of orphans were playing tag, running around with their irksome giggles.

I walked further down the street, and it wasn't long before I found the dame's complex, made semi-famous by all the newspaper articles that shot snaps of it with _AVATAR_ in the headlines. The only people around were two men leaning against the outside rail, one with a smoldering cig and the other with a rolled up newspaper. The latter one gave me a quick glance before returning to his mindless wander. I pushed through the squeaky gate and entered the building's lobby. An old hag sat rocking in her chair, her crabbiness amplified by her thick lenses.

"Could you tell me Katara's room number? They hired me to find their lost pet bison, but forgot to leave me a number," I asked, standing a polite distance away.

"That flying brute? Well good riddance. It sheds all over the place, and doesn't even have to manners to clean after itself…" She trailed off with incoherent muttering.

"Well could you give me—"

"I told you already, its 35!" she snapped at me, "All you whippor-snappers these days..."

I quickly left her to continue her conversation with herself and headed up the stairs. It smelled of damp leaf and sour milk. But the third floor wasn't much better, with its rat-chewed carpets and faded blue paint peeling off of the wood. I could hear scuttling as I walked towards the door with the tarnished 35 bolted to it. My fist rapped it twice.

There was no sign of life (other than what was crawling through the walls) until I heard some shuffling, and the door opened a crack, the lock's chain dangling quietly. A blue eye looked out at me suspiciously before its owner said, "If you're looking for the drug dealer, he's one door down."

Before he could close it, I shoved my foot through the small opening. "I'm not looking for drugs."

"Well the bootlegger got jailed last week so you're out of luck." He pushed on the door more firmly but I gripped the side with my hand now.

"Sokka, you better not be buying another vacuum cleaner," a groggy female voice called out from the room.

When he turned around to look at the speaker, I pulled out my business card and fed it through the opening. "Private Investigator Mai. Your sister called me earlier about how your pet bison went missing."

Sokka took the card and scrutinized it with a funny clashing of eyebrows. "Huh, I remember seeing Appa just this morning." He pulled out the chain and opened the door wide, giving me room to stride in. "Something musta happened when I went out shopping." I shut the door behind me and relocked it as the second inhabitant wearing loose garb walked into the small living room through another door.

"Who's 'at?" She asked, rubbing her eyes.

Sokka looked from me to her. "Wait, who the hell are you!" he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at me. He would be almost comical if I didn't have a job to do.

"I told you already, I'm a detective. I have a couple of questions for the both of you."

Before he could spout another question at me, a furry white mini-buffalo padded up to me and licked my leg. Appa I assumed. For a graceful creature that could fly, it looked rather shaggy. It probably left some itchy fur on me.

"Not another one," Katara sighed wearily as she poured herself some milk from behind the counter. She didn't even look surprised at my conning the way in.

"You should go now," her brother told me threateningly. Comical, really. "We've already told everything we know to the police, to the newspapers, _and to the damn Phoenix thugs_."

"Calm down Sokka." She walked towards the couch with a mug in hand and bade me to sit on it, which I obliged to. "Let's just get this over with." Sokka sat in a chair diagonal across from us and didn't take his eyes off of me. "So, yes I found the Avatar after he was shot and nursed him back to health here. No, I did not know what happened to him at the time. No, I did not know him before I found him in an alley coming back from work. No, he did not say anything to me because by the time he was feeling somewhat better, he ran out from here. No, I do not know where he ran off to." She finished with a sad, far-off look in her eye as she sipped her drink.

"That's not what I came to ask."

Her brother took the reins now. "Well that's all we know, and now that you know everything that you could possibly learn from us, you can kindly get out. You don't know how much pain this stupid spotlight has put us through. Phoenix has been hovering over us ever since we let that kid in. They were the ones who killed our mother," he seethed, standing up from his chair now. His eyes looked vicious. "She didn't even do anything! She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught in the crossfire over a stupid territory dispute! And while our father's been drafted into the army, my sister has to work as a host and I have to work at a construction firm in order to keep our home!"

"Sokka!" Katara shot a look at her brother, who was breathing heavy after his tirade. She looked at me as if to apologize, but her face was just as long as her sibling.

"I may not have personally experienced loss, but I have a friend—" well I knew about him enough by now "—who also lost his mother. She was killed by Ozai."

This seemed to calm the dark-skinned man. He inhaled more evenly now. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"His father and sister left him soon after that. He has his uncle, but you two are lucky to have each other," I said, adding the last smear of honey. Not that I didn't agree with that statement, but a little sympathy wouldn't hurt.

"Yah, I wouldn't know what I'd do without Sokka," she said with a small smile. Her brother sat back down. "You know, Aang really is a good kid. After he witnessed Ozai kill the guy, he didn't beg for his life. He ran. Which oddly enough is the crazier thing to do. And ended up getting shot in so many places, I didn't know how I could save him. I mean, I learned first aid to help Sokka with any injuries he had from work, but Aang was on a completely different level." She gripped the mug tightly, her thin fingers spread over the ceramic. "And when that body turned up in the river a week or two later, he left, not wanting to get us involved. Though we already pieced together what had happened."

Sokka continued, "Later on we found out through the newspapers that he was going to testify against Ozai for shooting that person. You know, it was the reporters who started call him the Avatar, and it really stuck on, including to us. It really seemed like he descended from the heavens. Justice was finally going to be brought down upon that damn crook. A couple of weeks past, and nothing happened as the court date got closer. Ba Sing Se actually had hope that the biggest criminal in town would be brought to his knees."

Katara bitterly interrupted. "But then everything changed when Phoenix attacked. They put a bounty on his head as big as the city itself and ran him out of town. Some thug named Zhao ended up taking the fall. And Ozai was probably left laughing at the whole thing in his office somewhere."

With their feelings out hanging in the air like a cadaver's last breath, I waited before asking my next question. Appa came over to the couch and snuggled against Katara's legs. "Why did they wait so long before making a move? They gave them so much time to prepare their case against Ozai."

Sokka shrugged. "Maybe so they could crush our spirits when they were at their highest. Seems like a sick thing they would do."

Time to drop it. "That friend of mine, he hired me to look for the Avatar. He told me that he saw him in town a couple of days ago. Has he tried to contact you guys in any way?"

They shook their heads calmly enough. "You're tooting the wrong ringer if you're looking for that information. Besides, why would he? He knows he'd get bumped off right off of the bat," Sokka stated logically.

"But you sure he's still alive then?"

"He's good at avoiding people with guns," Katara answered. She was staring straight at me now, a defiant curl in her mouth.

They were lying through their teeth.

Not surprising though.

I slowly got up from the couch, taking my time. "Well thank you for your help. My client probably got his information wrong anyway. There's no way the kid would come back here, even if the gang's been quiet for some time. There's nothing for him to even come back to." I shrugged.

"He has a lot of friends here," she replied.

"Well none that wouldn't give him to Phoenix for the reward money," I clarified, standing at the edge of the carpet now.

"Aang has _us_," Katara bit back, her voice low.

"I don't doubt you two. Though I think your efforts might have been wasted on him. Now that he's gone, it doesn't make a difference for the town if you had saved him or not."

"Hey, my sister did the right thing!" Sokka jumped in.

"Just because the rest of this town is so deep in the mud that they won't bother helping one dying person, doesn't mean I have to be like the rest of them. I saved Aang's life, and I don't regret it." Her voice was rising steadily.

"That's noble of you, but he only ended up causing you a lot of trouble. He didn't even have the courage to come back here and thank you."

"You know _nothing_ about Aang." She slammed her mug onto the coffee table, letting waves of milk slop over, which Appa licked eagerly. Now Katara was standing as well, and even though I was taller than her, she cast off the shadow of a bear. "You come in here, with your business card and your dry voice—why can't you get a cough drop or something!" she spluttered, "—and after all we've done to accommodate you and your questions, you just insult our friend!"

"Katara, calm down," Sokka appealed, coming closer to his sister to put an arm on her shoulder, but she just brushed him off. Her voice quickly filled the room, brimming over like a boiling pot of stew.

"Aang, is not a kid, he is a man. And he for damn sure is a better person than you, your friend, and all the people living in this stinking town! He's funny, he's brave, he's warm, and he's _good_. And you know what? He's out somewhere in this city trying to foil Ozai and his plan right now!"

The room went completely silent after that. There weren't even birds chirping outside on the rooftops or the laughter of kids playing ball.

"Katara…"

She still gazed at me with anger, but her face slowly shifted as the realization of what she had just revealed dawned on her.

"You—you better not tell anyone!"

How many times have I rolled my eyes during this case? "I won't. I wasn't hired to hand the Avatar over to Phoenix."

They still eyed me suspiciously, unsure of what to do. "How do we know you're not lying?" Sokka demanded.

"You two were the ones who were lying about the Avatar."

"That's cause we're the good guys!"

"Well if I was a part of the gang, I would have shot you two already—"

"Damn rat!" a muffled voice hissed behind the door connecting to the hallway.

All of us turned to the source of the noise, before looking back at each other. Being the closest, I quietly padded towards the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open.

Nothing was there except a gray little animal that darted back into a crack in the wall.

"Was it just me, or did you guys hear—"

"Yes Sokka, we all heard that," Katara responded irritatedly. Even though I was facing the door to close it, I could tell her eyes were still trained on me. "Sorry detective, but for now you're going to have to stay with us."

"Yah, even if you have a gun, there's two of us and only one of you, so don't try anything." Sokka said loudly. Then he paused. "Do you have a gun?"

"No." I moved my arms to pat my gun-free coat pockets and the brother immediately stepped back towards the window across from us, grabbing at a potted cactus to defend himself with. For a pair willing to nurse a random person-turned-Swiss-cheese they found in a dark alley, they weren't very trusting.

"What kind of self-respecting detective doesn't have a gun?" Katara questioned, eyebrow cocked.

"I don't need one—"

"Hey," Sokka interrupted, "isn't that our crazy witch of a landlord?" His nose was to the window pane. "Who's she talking to?"

"It's Mrs Deely," Katara chided, walking over to him to look out as well. "Oh, those are the guys who started hanging around here a couple of days ago."

"Could they be from Phoenix?"

That caught their attention. Katara turned her head towards me. "That would explain why they looked at me funny whenever I passed through the gates…"

"Katara, you are a beautiful young lady and you got to remember to cover yourself up when you leave the building!" Sokka admonished, before getting a glare in return. "Hey, I think she's pointing up here…"

I joined them at the window without any opposition and looked out. One of the men was walking down the sidewalk while the other who had a cigarette followed the old woman into the building.

"You don't think she was eavesdropping on our conversation do you? I mean, the wood can't be that thin." She rubbed her wavy brown hair nervously.

"I don't know, sometimes I can't go to sleep 'cause Chong and his gal keep banging real loudly next door," Sokka refuted with a wave of his arms. "Oh yah, Chong! Since Miss P.I. over here doesn't even have a weapon…"

"Hey, we're not even sure yet that they're coming after us."

"Sis, you were shouting pretty loudly, and I'm sure the witch wouldn't seeing our brains splattered on the floor."

"Then we need to find a way to escape, not find a way into a gun fight," his sister argued.

"The second guy probably went around to the back of the building, and they should both have guns. The more firepower, the better," I stated. Only Sokka turned to stare at me pointedly now, but he had already put down the desert plant.

We filed out of the room and stood in front of door 37. "Hey, Chong, open up!" Sokka shouted, banging on wood. The door suddenly pulled open and his fist almost knocked on the chest of a taller, but scrawnier man.

"Heyo…Sokka," drifted a voice from the drug dealer. It didn't seem to belong to the whiskered man in front of me, more like it came from the jujus smoke wafting through the door. "I see you brought some quality skirts with you, very nice." He smiled, revealing yellow teeth.

Katara looked like she was going to torch the man with her eyes, but Sokka gave her a quick look before continuing, "Actually, I wanted to warn you that some thugs are coming after your stash. I heard them talking 'bout it near the building."

"What, somebody wants to steal my tea leaves?" he said slowly, like he was on a tour of the outer wall. I had half a mind to shove him down—

Something grey and fast whizzed straight past my hair and clipped the frame, causing splinters to fly out. My ears rang. I felt someone's hands on my back as Katara pushed us all into the room. Chong moved to the side, oddly adept for someone who was high. We stumbled in. A second shot clipped the door this time.

"Hand them over, and I won't pop your head open with metal!" a deep voice yelled from outside the hallway. It sounded like he was at the far end, but he was taking heavy footsteps towards us.

Chong kicked a floorboard in the middle of the room and plied it away. There was a shotgun underneath. He grabbed it and shoved in some slugs.

"Go get them, darling," came a lazy voice from a corner of the room. A woman with frizzy black hair was lounging with a reefer in her hand.

He propped it up. A boom exploded from the man in dirty briefs. A crack could be heard out in the hallway. The strides quickly moved backwards. "You'll never touch my leaf!" He pulled the trigger again.

"Let's go." The sound of a pistol fired. Then the shotgun. I pushed them towards the grimy window and we all tried fruitlessly to pull up the pane.

"You have to unlock it first," the woman said in a long drawl.

I popped the tab sideways and lifted it up, letting cold air wash over us. Feet first, I slid through the opening onto the metal fire escape. My shoes hit it with a clank. Something clipped the rail, and sparks flew out. I ducked. Through the spaces in between I saw the man with the newspaper. There was a hole in the middle of the folded papers.

"Ho hum," I heard from inside. But my attention shifted back out when another shot came past me. It hit the grating above. By now, he had abandoned his newspaper covering and was left with a hefty gun in his hand. I flipped out a knife instinctively, but the man was too far away.

"'scuuuse me." The woman slid lithely through the window and bent down as the thug shot again. It hit the brick wall. She had a bottle with a rag stuffed in it in her left hand and a lighter in the other. She flicked it, lit the rag, and sent off the bottle like a ship. It sailed through the air on its maiden voyage and crashed onto the asphalt. Glass and flames ripped out and shooter tumbled backwards. "Whoopsie."

I could hear Sokka and Katara make their way out now. I jumped to the second level and ran down the stairs, left, right, left right, left right, left right, until my feet hit the ground. The brute was getting up now, and he let off a round at me half on his knees. I felt a sting at my side but ignored it. Twisting my torso, I focused on him before releasing the first knife, firing it towards his dominant hand.

"Agni!" he cried in pain, dropping the gun along with some drips of blood.

My brain was pounding hard now. I aimed one more for his head this time, but he ducked to the side. The fire was quickly dissipating and his shape became more focused. He made a grab for the gun. Launching myself forward, I took out two more stilettos and shot them towards his knees. He fell forward, face contorted with anguish.

"Raaaaah!" A pony-tail whisked past me towards the crouching man with a piece of wood. Sokka smashed the finishing blow over his head and the gangster's face hit the road. The construction worker's shoulders drew up and down quickly as he stood over the unconscious body.

"You guys okay down there?" Chong's carefree voice floated towards us, his head sticking out of the window. The other guy probably had a bullet lodged into his skull. "Babe, I love what you've done with this place."

"Yah, I think the alley looks so much prettier now," she answered dreamily.

The harsh call of sirens cut through the air and we all stopped to listen to them coming closer.

"Thanks for taking that guy down," Katara said after walking up to me, glaring at the piece of meat lying a few feet away from her.

"Just returning the favor." She vaguely nodded, but crooked grins quietly emerged on both of our faces.

Her gaze shifted downwards. "Hey, you're bleeding." Her fingers grasped wet red fabric at the left side of my waist. Blood. Didn't feel serious. I blinked a couple of times, trying to push back at the adrenaline wave overwhelming my brain. I brushed her hand away.

"It's just a flesh wound." I numbed it in my head. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I said, "You're going to lose your pet bison, okay?"

"What?"

"I'm only here because you called me to look for your pet."

"But you came here to—" Katara stopped and nodded in understanding. She headed back up the fire escape to lose Appa.

"Man, this is one of the few times I'm happy that half of this apartment is on _something_," Sokka noted, looking around. Only a few heads came to their windows to look out, but they quickly retreated. It was the police who got to the scene first.

A black Ford rolled over to the entrance of the alleyway and stopped with a huff of its engine. The black door swung open, and a pair of dark boots exited first, followed by a perfectly tailored police uniform, complete with shiny brass buttons. She shut the door with authoritative patience and turned her brown-hair framed face towards us. After surveying the scene, her blue-green eyes focused on me. "Detective Mai. It's good to see you again."

* * *

_Tune it next week for crazy inmates and doughnuts!_

x

I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on this. :)


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